


Umbrella man

by Obotligtnyfiken



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Deductions, Ficlet, Legwork, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 12:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13704309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obotligtnyfiken/pseuds/Obotligtnyfiken
Summary: Sherlock sees an image in the newspaper and makes a deduction.





	Umbrella man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wetislandinthenorthatlantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wetislandinthenorthatlantic/gifts).



> This is just a little thing I wrote for @wetislandinthenorthatlantic who posted this image: http://wetislandinthenorthatlantic.tumblr.com/post/170904289177/look-mycroft-is-in-switzerland-thinkture

“John!”

“What?” John slammed the fridge door shut, shuddering as he heard the mysterious containers rattle inside. They had looked suspiciously like fingers from the outside but he hadn’t dared touch them. One of these days he was going to force Sherlock to clean out the shelves properly. With fire, if necessary.

Sherlock appeared in the doorway, holding The Times open in front of himself. “Look!”

John stepped closer and scanned the pages for whatever it was that had caught Sherlock’s attention. “Thousands will get out of jail early? Are you worried someone you put in there will come out?”

Sherlock growled and shook the newspaper. “No! Look!” He shoved the other page closer to John’s face, snapping it for emphasis.

John read the headlines on the page but couldn’t find anything that looked remotely like a case. “I don’t get it. What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Mycroft has left the office!”

“He has?” John looked the articles over one more time, but could find no mention of Mycroft Holmes, minor positions in the British Government, excessive use of CCTV or meddling in international elections. “How do you know?”

“For God’s sake, man, look!” Sherlock flipped the newspaper around and turned on his heel to stand beside John, pointing a long finger at an innocuous image of a ski slope next to an article summing up the results of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

John squinted at the image, but could find neither tall people, tweed, nor insufferable attitude anywhere in the picture. “Where is he?”

Sherlock looked like he would explode with frustration. “There!” he yelled and pointed so hard at the image that the whole newspaper fluttered away. After a hilariously floppy chase through the kitchen to catch it, he returned to John, who had somehow managed to not laugh out loud at the spectacle. He straightened himself and calmly spread the paper on the kitchen table. “That,” he said, “is Mycroft Holmes wearing the most hilariously humiliating disguise of his entire career.”

John looked closely at the person in the middle of the photograph. A pair of legs, half a back and an elbow was visible beneath a large umbrella. “That can’t be him. He’s not tall enough.”

“That is why he is wearing those ridiculous baggy trousers, to hide the fact that he is walking with bent knees.”

“But how do you know that it is him?”

“Obvious.” Sherlock snapped the newspaper shut and started to leave the kitchen.

“Not to me it isn’t. You’re the one who came in here shouting about it, so you’d better tell me how you knew.” Sherlock did this every time, and it never failed to get John’s back up.

Sherlock turned around with a self-satisfied grin. “No one else would bring his umbrella to go skiing,” he said and turned back, throwing the newspaper on John’s chair as he walked to the window to pick up his violin.

Despite himself, John couldn’t help smiling at Sherlock’s back. Smartass, he thought. Smartass with bad kitchen hygiene and the most brilliant mind in England.

And the most talented fingers this side of Covent Garden, he added to himself as the man started playing something furiously complicated. On the other side of the windows, the snow had started falling over Baker Street. John sat down to listen, throwing the newspaper back to Sherlock’s chair. The fire popped and John snuggled down, hoping that the snow was falling on Mycroft as well, snowing him in so he couldn’t get back to London to kidnap John for some freshly made up insidious insult. It really was a good day, despite the thumbs in the crisper.

 


End file.
